Weatherbys Banking Group is providing health insurance benefits and wellbeing services for all its staff for the first time, working with Equipsme to deliver a wide range of health provisions to employees across London, Wellingborough and Edinburgh.
Some 300 members of staff now have access to Equipsme’s 24/7 GP service, nurse advice line, physiotherapy appointments, and private diagnosis and hospital treatment. They also have dental and optical cover – helping with the costs of dental and optician appointments, treatments and glasses. Staff can also choose to add their family members to their Equipsme plans.
While some senior staff already have private medical insurance, this is the first time Weatherbys has broadened its health benefits to a solution that covers every member of staff throughout the business.
Weatherbys HR Director, Carol Davies, commented: “We want to make sure our benefits package really supports our staff and helps us to maintain a competitive advantage as an employer. We know healthcare cover is increasingly popular. Given the current NHS landscape and the very real challenges in terms of access to healthcare, people are clearly looking for other options to take care of themselves.”
After their probation period, every Weatherbys Banking Group employee is eligible for an Equipsme health plan. Health insurance adds to the suite of 24 perks and benefits that Weatherbys provides to its staff, ranging from pensions to life assurance, volunteering days to season ticket loans, an EAP to a cycle-to-work scheme.
“We’re really proud of our benefits package,” added Carol, “and now we can be even prouder of it. When you’re ill you want to know you can get the help you need to get treated quickly and recover. That’s what our people have with Equipsme. They know they can get a GP appointment, obtain physio treatment and be taken care of. That kind of peace of mind is so important right now and an investment we were really happy to be able to make.”
Commenting on why Weatherbys selected Equipsme, Carol continued: “We searched the market for a reputable provider that could cover everyone at an affordable and sustainable price. What we didn’t want was costs to rise with each claim to the point where the cover wouldn’t be viable for us as a business, or for the employee benefit-in-kind cost to become a barrier to adoption. We tried all the usual suspects and all the big names, but nothing quite ticked all the boxes.
“For us, Equipsme really stood out from the market. The dental and optical cover was particularly important to us, and we liked the link to health assessments through Thriva, building in a preventative function that lets people actually take a proactive approach to their health.”
Equipsme’s Managing Director, Matthew Reed, said: “Businesses like Weatherbys are exactly who we created Equipsme for. We’re delighted to be able to fill that crucial middle ground between a cash plan and PMI, and to be able to support businesses who want to support their whole workforce. Everyone should be able to access health back-up when they need it, from the shop floor to the boardroom. Not only does it improve people’s lives, it improves businesses, too.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with Weatherbys to get cover in place for staff and support the team to make sure everyone understands what they’ve got and how to use it.”
About Weatherbys Banking Group
Founded in 1770, Weatherbys is a family run business that has evolved over the last 250 years to become a group of companies which include Weatherbys Private Bank, Weatherbys Racing Bank, Arkle Finance Ltd and Weatherbys Hamilton LLP. The Group provides banking services to a client base of predominantly high-net-worth individuals. In addition to banking and wealth advice, it provides financial services to the horse racing industry and wider community, asset finance to SMEs, tax and insurance services.
Across the group, the proposition is fundamentally about people and Weatherbys goes the extra mile in terms of the service it provides to its clients.
